Colin in Black and White: What the Must Watch reviewers think
Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.
This week Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan review Colin in Black and White on Netflix. American football star, Colin Kaepernick (the first sportsperson to take a knee in protest against police brutality and racial injustice in the US in 2016) recounts his formative years.
Netflix
Scott says: "The main lead is astounding"
"It’s astounding TV and I felt incredibly engrossed by it. This is part Apple keynote presentation and part TED Talk, part drama. You see Colin surrounded by these screens which he uses to articulate his story. He uses his own experiences and career to highlight the wider issue of systemic racism. There are so many statistics and insights to really help you understand the issues related to his story.
"I’m not that familiar with the NFL but I felt that I was let into this world because of his storytelling. It never feels too laboured. The main lead, Jaden Michaels, who plays young Colin, is astounding – he’s completely believable. He’s one to look out for and I think he’s got a fantastic career ahead of him."
Hayley says: "Educational but it’s not boring"
"It’s Kaepernick walking us through his history as well as African-American history. I really like that it’s not just a biography of one guy, which means that it's not something made purely for football fans. It shows us the personal and social factors which led to him becoming a civil rights activist, because what he did in 2016 didn’t come out of nowhere. It cost him a lot: he was pushed out of the NFL and he’s not currently signed to any team. And since he’s a footballer, and what he did was a silent act, he’s probably been argued about in the media more than he’s actually been listened to. So I love the fact that he’s been given this platform to show how all this started and what it means.
"It’s definitely produced in a way that’s educational but it's not boring: it’s not like something you’d be forced to sit through in History class. My only beef is there are parts that can be so earnest they are cringey – but that’s just the TED Talk stuff Scott mentions."
Netflix
Colin in Black and White is available now on Netflix.
Must Watch is released as a podcast every Monday evening from BBC Sounds and all other good podcast providers.
This week, the team speak to Mandip Gill about Doctor Who: Flux on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Plus, reviews of Invasion on Apple TV + and Dalgliesh on Channel 5.
